Bob Forrest, singer-songwriter of Thelonius Monster & Drug Counselor on Celebrity Rehab

The conversation covers various topics, including Bob Forrest's experience as a CNN contributor, the impact of social media, and drug addiction in the music industry. Bob shares insights on the 80s drug culture in Los Angeles, highlighting connections between bands like Motley Crue, Aerosmith, and the Chili Peppers. They discuss the challenges of maintaining sobriety and the role of drugs in the music scene. The discussion also touches on the evolving nature of music, the decline of meaningful lyrics, and the impact of social media on society. Additionally, they reflect on the personal and professional struggles of maintaining a career in music and the importance of songwriting.

0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:13 - CNN Contributor & Social Media Impact
0:02:18 - Musical Connections & Drug Culture
0:05:23 - Heavy Metal Vs Indie Rock Perceptions
0:10:22 - Reflections on Kurt Cobain & Indie Rock
0:14:34 - The Role of Social Media & Personal Boundaries
0:14:47 - The Impact of Pharmaceutical Industry on Addiction
0:19:33 - Social Media & Problems with Humanity
0:34:10 - Doing Drugs & Adverse Consequences & Music
0:56:09 - The Struggle with Addiction & Path to Recovery
1:00:26 - The Role of Bands & Ebb & Flow of Success
1:08:49 - Drugs, Sobriety, Songwriting & Catharsis
1:21:18 - Psychedelics & Other Drugs & Addiction
1:26:35 - Genetic Test & Predisposition to Addiction
1:35:10 - Kids, Society, Rules and Culture
1:53:13 - Outro

Bob Forrest website:
https://bobforrestmusic.com/

Oro House Recovery Centers website:
https://www.ororecovery.com/bob-forrest/

Chuck Shute link tree:
https://linktr.ee/chuck_shute

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:13

Oh yeah, no, we're just a silly little podcast.

Bob Forrest: 0:16

No, no, I know what you are,

Chuck Shute: 0:17

where and all that shit like, it's

Bob Forrest: 0:19

great, I swear on television. Do you swear on CNN? I've sworn on CNN before. They don't bleep it really,

Chuck Shute: 0:29

okay. Why do they probably, there's not a delay or something. Yeah, there's

Bob Forrest: 0:32

a delay. But like, you know, I used to be a CNN contributor and, and, really, yeah, and then I about drugs and overdose and all that, and probably about 10 years ago. And here's I always like to say, Everybody thinks as contributors make money. It's $3,000 a month, and you have to be on call within 45 minutes, like I lived near the CNN building in LA so it was pretty easy for me, but if you lived where I live now, you couldn't do it. Oh, you can't do it via satellite or whatever. No, you gotta go that. Well, back then I had to go there. Oh, okay,

Chuck Shute: 1:09

that's not bad, though, 3000 a month. Like, yeah, damn. Okay. I see, no,

Bob Forrest: 1:16

I thought, see, I

Chuck Shute: 1:17

actually reached out to you a couple years ago. I think I hate your Instagram, which I don't think you've checked

Bob Forrest: 1:21

for. Like, yeah, well, we can go into that. Like, I love talking about social media and its impact on our society. And, oh yeah, I'd

Chuck Shute: 1:29

love to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, it's, it's

Bob Forrest: 1:32

not, it's not great,

Chuck Shute: 1:36

shocking, really, I thought it was really healthy. Like, yeah, no, that's interesting, but so because I remember, So correct me if I'm wrong. And I tried to do a little research, and I I could not find this. Did I imagine this? Or did you used to? Did you help Aerosmith and Motley Yeah, okay,

Bob Forrest: 1:55

just I used to do drugs with Motley Crue and I helped Aerosmith.

Chuck Shute: 2:01

But didn't you help Nikki six gets over or no? No, he was a mess. I

Bob Forrest: 2:05

was a mess. Duff was a mess. So we could talk all about 80s drug addiction, rap musician in Los Angeles, if you want, because I've got I can tell you all what really went on, and it's not what you think. What's What do you mean? Not what I think. Okay, so one of my best friends is Robin from rap. Yeah, Robin, I'm in this indie rock band or punk rock band, um Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Rock were some of our closest friends when we were growing up, me and fleeing Anthony, there was no genre within humanity in Los Angeles, right, there was a little bit of like, John, my friend Janie lane, wrote that song, cherry pie. And I was like, and he was telling me how it was, you know, it was fucked up, because it's such a big song, and now it blocks out their other songs. And I remember thinking, like, I'll take it. I'll take the royalties. I didn't know you knew.

Chuck Shute: 3:04

You knew Janie lane, because I love I think he's so underrated.

Bob Forrest: 3:08

He's the sweetest guy in the world, just so sweet. And that's a funny thing, like there was no chili peppers. James addiction, felonious monster, fish, bone hangout alone together, and then Motley Crue and rat and all that heavy metal bands hang out together. There was and drugs were the uniter. Drugs were they were the unifying force. Okay, that makes sense, though, yeah, like, No, it's true. What people don't know Steven Adler. Steven Adler and Saul slash were a year younger than the chili peppers, and they went to the same high school, Fairfax High School, and the first band, flea and Hillel, the guitar player the chili peppers, who died sadly in 1987 flee Hillel and Jack irons, the original chili peppers without Anthony Singing, had a band called anthem, named after the rush song. And they played rush, you know, covers and Ted Nugent covers, and they were probably 1516 at playing in Jack irons garage in Fairfax district of La and Steven and and slash used to go and sit on the fence in the driveway and listen to it like in the same neighborhood, Guns N Roses and the chili peppers come from the same neighborhood.

Chuck Shute: 4:28

Wow, that's so crazy to think about. And so

Bob Forrest: 4:31

there nowadays, I think things are echo chambered and and you only hang out with people or that, you know, whatever. But back then, it was just like everybody's friends with everybody. I remember Duff was more of a punk rocker, and when he got in Guns and Roses, kind of like, because he was a, he was a drummer, from what I remember. But I might be wrong, but he was, and he was more of a punk rocker, and now he's going to be in this metal band. It was, it was weird. To have someone cross over, it's okay to do drugs and hang out, but to cross over musically, that apparently happens. You know what? I

Chuck Shute: 5:07

mean? Well, they definitely had the punk influences, right? Yeah, but, I

Bob Forrest: 5:11

mean, Steven was really the person how I learned about guns and roses, because he was always hyping. Stephen was the king of handing out flyers and hyping his band. I've seen like before, guns and Rose, Steven Adler had four other heavy metal bands that were awful, and I go see him, right? Because he just nags you so much you can't go. Yeah, if you don't go to the one that you said you'd go to, he'll be like theater. Where were you waiting for you? He's intense, right? I've known him since I'm 21 years old, 22 years old. So anyways, I saw some bands that Genghis Cohen was this club and in LA a small, little club, and I seen him at the coconut teaser, and he was always in bad bands, and he's hyping me on this band, that's a merger of two bands. And I'm like, Okay. And then he said, they're playing out the scream. And the scream was like, you know, that was a legitimate gig, not like coconut teas, or some pay to play, or some little restaurant with 50 people, that was and I was like, you're playing that scream. And I'd never heard of them. And he said, Yeah, yeah, come. And I remember going, I forget who I went with and seeing Guns and Roses for the first time. And it was like, Holy God man, holy God. They're amazing. They're powerful. Yeah, they are that hybrid of Aerosmith and the Sex Pistols and and angry and dangerous and all the other metal bands that seem like fake dangerous, like, if you know Steven Tyler, there's nothing dangerous about Stephen Tyler. He's, he's kind of, like, you know, the sweetest guy, and, like, very drug

Chuck Shute: 6:54

wise, he was, he was pretty crazy, right? The toxic toy, yeah,

Bob Forrest: 6:59

I never did drugs with him. I was mostly dealing with him in sobriety, and him trying to get sober that second time, and but for the most part, I would say heavy metal people, or whatever you want to call it, hard rock people are nicer people than indie rock people. And I'm an indie rock person,

Chuck Shute: 7:20

because I, to me, it seems like maybe the indie rock people are kind of like, snooty, like they're like, Oh, that sucks. Like, there's a lot of that, right? Well,

Bob Forrest: 7:28

also, like, if you take someone like me and flea were kind of nerdy in school, so we got picked on, and kind of, you know, like you kind of a chip on your shoulder, right? And so if you get in a band that doesn't make the chip go away. And I think, I think, I think people like Robin, he's like a, you know, I don't know if you knew Robin Cosby. He was like six foot seven. He's just like a Don it was like Adonis, and I had so many great times with him. And he knew we had shitty guitars in my band, and we were making our second record, and he goes, he was sitting on my house with doing drugs, of course. And he goes, Are you guys recording with your your guys guitars? Because we had, like, SGS that wouldn't stay in tune, and like, like, shitty knockoff Japanese guitars. And he goes, You know, I don't want to, I don't want to offend you guys, were like, I can send some guitars by the studio if you want. And so our third record was made with all rack guitars. It sounds like an indie rock band, but they're playing these big Firebird, white Firebirds, that is, they sound perfect. They sound so great. That's

Chuck Shute: 8:37

interesting. Yeah, I just watched your movie, Bob and the monster. And, yeah, I was gonna tell you, though, because you're talking about how they, you know, indie people have a chip on, but that's one of the things I loved about that movie. I was like, if I ever got big enough that where somebody would care enough to make a documentary of me, I want it like this. Because the coolest thing about your movie is, like, your bandmates, there's so many people calling you an asshole, because, you know how, like, we usually make a documentary, like, oh, everything is positive, everything's good, and it's like, your band is, like, it was the biggest fucking assholes. I

Bob Forrest: 9:09

was, like,

Chuck Shute: 9:11

it's the curve of life because you grew up. But, I mean, I assume, and, yeah, yeah, because you got sober. So that was a huge piece of it, yeah. Well,

Bob Forrest: 9:19

you just get, you know, that chip on your shoulder, it never goes away, what you know. And friends of mine, you know, like Gibby from Butthole Surfers, and we, everybody has it, kind of, Steve Albini had it. Kurt Cobain had it. It's like an indie rock chip on your shoulder type of thing. And you got to be able to go through therapy or come to some sort of piece about the world's not against you. You know, when you look at the heroes of punk rock, Johnny Rotten still thinks the world's against him. He's like, 74 years old. Everywhere he goes, everybody kisses that. Everybody bows down to him. He you know, like, I don't understand how you can be. So angry, I mean, but and the heavy metal guys were never angry. That was except for Axel. Of course. See Axel is an angry guy, or he was. I saw them at that desert trip thing, and he was smiling. I've seen guns and Rose probably 3040, times. I played with them like I seen them through all their different incarnations, and I've never seen him smile on stage, and he was smiling the whole time. So he's found peace. I think

Chuck Shute: 10:31

you think so. What do you think happened that where he found peace? Like what changed? Did he? Because I don't think he got sober. Did he I mean, I feel like he never was

Bob Forrest: 10:39

an addict. He's just crazy. He's just crazy.

Chuck Shute: 10:46

I mean, given his background in his childhood, it's like, if you actually, I mean, from what I read about it, it's like, Wow, no wonder he's so fucked up. But I also feel like that fueled the music, and that's why there was so much emotion that I could relate to as a teen, and the anger and stuff. And I was like, Oh, this I love this guy. They love these guys because they don't, they don't take shit from people. And I was like, Yeah, expect that. Well,

Bob Forrest: 11:08

you know, the first line of Appetite for Destruction is the word welcome. And he sings it like, Fuck you, you know. So it's that he was that thing, but he you know, eventually, hopefully, if you live long enough, and you get off drugs, you find peace, or you find some sort of insight. I think most of my friends that are still alive have that and and it's sad that Robin wasn't able to do it. A lot of friends have passed that never got to get to the other side of it, whether it's childhood trauma or drug addiction or whatever, it's kind of sad. You know what I mean? Like Kurt was my favorite. Kurt Cobian is my favorite because, like, that day that he killed himself, like or that they found him, or whatever, I just thought like, it's not many people like him. I'm kind of also, I'm a rock singer, but I'm also, like, more of a nerdy journalist. I went to journalism school, and, like, I love scream magazine, circus magazine. I know historically what music means and how everything interconnects. And I really thought, like, there hasn't been someone like him since, like Bob Marley. And what I mean by that is you're talking about a guy who's the most respected musician on Earth, songwriter wise, there's no doubt Kurt was the most respected songwriter of his era at that time, right? And the richest you know, rarely do you get both, if you think about it, because there's critic starlings like Lou Reed, ain't he wasn't fucking rich, but everyone respected him. Bowie bowed down to him, and he, you know, like Iggy's another one. He's not rich, he's just Iggy Pop, right? But then there's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and the super successful John Lennon and Paul McCartney, there's a successful people and there's the respected people, and rarely is the person blessed with both. And Kurt was Bob Marley, was John Lennon, was Jimi Hendrix was, I mean, there's very few that had both, and so when he did that that day, it was like a testament to all of us, like, you know you better wake up like unless you kind of come to grips with yourself, you're never going to be okay, no matter if everyone loves you and respects you, if that's what you want or wealth beyond your wildest dreams, it's not going to fix what's wrong with you. It really was like, I remember thinking about it for days like, this is a heavy thing, man, this is a heavy thing. So anyways, and I think most of the people that survived have gained insight. I mean, slash, slash just lost his daughter a couple weeks ago. So sad, I can't imagine. Did you know that?

Chuck Shute: 14:00

Yeah, stepdaughter, yeah, I know, or I don't know. Now I'm hearing it wasn't technically his stepdaughter, because it was actually mark Knight from bank, yeah, daughter, yeah. Then I think slash was dating or married to the mom. So yeah,

Bob Forrest: 14:16

he was raised with his kids. Okay, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 14:19

there's obviously a relationship. And yeah, I think that they they both feel tremendous sadness and guilt. And yeah, ever that goes along, I can't imagine that's the worst thing in the world is losing a child. So I don't anybody, and I know Mark. I've had him on the show couple times, super nice guy, so he definitely didn't deserve that. I don't know slash personally, but from what I know about him, he sounds like a you know, he's gotten his gotten his life together. Doesn't deserve that either. So, yeah, that's, I don't know how you find peace with that in the universe. I

Bob Forrest: 14:53

don't think you do, because I deal with a lot of parents. I've been a drug counselor for 30 years. I don't think you do. There was something. And something happened, oh, with this Matthew Perry stuff, right? The dad, or the stepdad, because the doctors were arrested, was claiming that that was justice for the family. Like, I don't know about that. Like, if my kid died of drugs, I don't think putting the drug dealer in jail is going to give me any solace? I really, I think it's, I think it's an American bullshit myth. Like, I don't know, I never, what

Chuck Shute: 15:28

do you mean? Like, uh, no, you're saying yeah, because that eventually, I mean, ultimately, it's up to the person who's going to do the drug. Like, people are going to find the drugs, like, the war on drugs that didn't work, right? Like people, like, we just, we tried to, you know, we banned this substance. It's illegal. You can't do it. People do it anyway. So that shit doesn't it's like, why did he want to do, I think Matthew Perry was ketamine. Why is he doing in a hot tub by himself? It was bizarre.

Bob Forrest: 15:54

Yeah, so many bizarre things. But, I mean, he's a lifelong addict and and, you know, struggled with it, you know, for decades, and and that he died. I mean, if I'm his father, I I've been expecting to hear that he died for 20 years. You know what I mean. And whoever gave him the drugs, I don't care. My kids did,

Chuck Shute: 16:16

but didn't the guy that gave him the drugs. It was a doctor that prescribed, yeah, yeah. You kind of touch on that a little bit in the film Bob and the monster, where, how the pharmaceutical company has kind of come in and like, hey, we want to be a part of the recovery. And we got Suboxone, we got, yeah, we got all these things. And now ketamine is a thing that they're using to help addicts, right?

Bob Forrest: 16:38

Yeah, with depression, anxiety. But the point is, America is this. Everybody thinks, you know, the whole world is like this. No, only America is like this. I mean, I know a lot of people never leave here, but so some stats that are really mind boggling, America is 4.8% of the world's population. We consume 80% of the world's opioids, 5% roughly 5% of the world consumes 80% of the heroin, Oxycontin, fentanyl in the world. We are still 4.8% of the population in the world. We take almost 50% of the world's prescription drugs.

Chuck Shute: 17:23

You think that's because we are also one of the richest, like, we can afford it. We're like, No,

Bob Forrest: 17:27

I think, I think it's that the pharmaceutical industry has has gotten himself into our politic and our DNA as a society, much like the oil industry did and the tobacco industry did, which is, we know it's dangerous, and yet we're just got open prescriptions to everything, right? Meaning, now kids are dying of fentanyl pill overdoses. Right? Worst thing you can do as a 15 year old, take a pill. You don't know where it came from, you don't know who created it, you don't know who made it, but you've been programmed your whole life to believe pills are safe, and I'm, I'm on this rampage that pills are not safe. They give you a whole piece of paper that's like, you know, 36 inches long, about all the things that could adversely happen to you from taking this harmless, supposed medicine, right? Yeah. No, pills are fucking safe, right, right, but we've taught young people that they are they're more safe than powders are bad. Powders are actually less dangerous, and I'll tell you why. When you ingest fentanyl, you know, most users here in Southern California put it on tinfoil and they smoke it, inhale it that way, if you get a over, you know, huge dose of it, you're not going to die, you're probably going to go unconscious for a while, but you're not going to finish all that you had, right? When you take a pill of it, that's games that match, okay? Because it could delay. It's all going to come into your system. Yeah, right. And, and, you know, I've talked to paramedics are talking about, you know, takes three shots of Narcan to to bring these people back. You know, not everybody has three shots of Narcan. That costs, you know, $170 a thing. You know, everybody got that.

Chuck Shute: 19:22

They're sneaking the fentanyl into other stuff. Like my brother's friend did coke and there was fentanyl in it, and there was two of them, and they both passed out. And then somebody walking by just happened to see it, gave one of the guys Narcan, so he lived, and the other guy died.

Bob Forrest: 19:36

Oh, my God. Where was that? Seattle. Oh yeah,

Chuck Shute: 19:40

yeah. That's where I'm from originally. Like, there's

Bob Forrest: 19:43

some rough towns, like Seattle, Philadelphia, here in Los Angeles. Like, there's just, yeah, crazy, right?

Chuck Shute: 19:52

The people are leaning over. It's like a, what's the like, a zombie drink.

Bob Forrest: 19:57

It's called a Trank, yeah? What

Chuck Shute: 19:59

the hell is this? Shit.

Bob Forrest: 20:00

I don't know what they love.

Chuck Shute: 20:03

Why does anyone want to do the See, I just look at that. I look at heroin, I look at fentanyl. And I just don't see why anybody wants does that just where you just say, You know what? Fuck my life, and I'm just gonna, I don't give a shit anymore. Is that

Bob Forrest: 20:15

a hopelessness that abounds and in our society in general, like, I don't know where it comes from then that you asked me about social media. So, so I just, I'm, you know, I'm, like, a private person. I got a lot of friends, and if you talk about them too much, they call you up and go with the book. Why don't you

Chuck Shute: 20:38

talk about your life,

Bob Forrest: 20:40

not mine? Yeah, I like to talk, and I like to tell stories, and I think conversation is a lost art, and so, so I just thought, you know, I don't need to be on Facebook and all this stuff. Plus I was on there a little bit. And right when, you know, before Trump, there was a wave of hatred and anger and discontentment that you could feel right, that I don't like, I don't agree with. I was raised by a much older dad, my grandfather, really, and you just couldn't complain about like he would just blast you. That's another thing like Gen Xers, millennials and Gen Zers. No one blasts them like my dad would call you stupid at the dining room table. I think it's important. Yeah, that's

Chuck Shute: 21:30

really not. You're not being sensitive, and you're, uh, there's all these like rules. There's all these like rules and things you

Bob Forrest: 21:36

gotta feeling. Yeah, you can't hurt people's feelings. You can't tell the truth. You can't use, you know, kind of accurate language, right? So, so we were told we couldn't complain. So we got it like, don't complain. So I started seeing it in Facebook. Like everybody complained, like people I knew, like our old road manager, and like people I need is complaining and like, their lives aren't bad. They live in a nice house in Huntington Beach. They're, they're fucking golden. They were lucky to that's a good point. Yeah, I don't get

Chuck Shute: 22:11

playing, or people that are doing really well, yeah, like,

Bob Forrest: 22:14

or whatever. I don't know what Dr drew says it's unresolved trauma, but, but social media gives, gives unresolved trauma, a voice, a soapbox to go out there and complain and attack and be negative. And so I wasn't a big fan of it, but I have a rehab center in Malibu, so so all the marketers and all the SEO people tell you, Oh, you're the guy. You gotta do social media. So I did it, and I had this Instagram account with simple for me called Bob forest is a dad, and I did and I enjoyed it, like just fun stuff, and, you know, just little antidotes and whatever. And then I posted a video of my three year old daughter dancing to Michael Jackson. So this was five years ago. She's it just turned eight, and people started DMing me and telling me, take that down, like Michael Jackson's a pedophile. And I was like, fuck you. Like, don't want, don't watch, don't watch it. Then it got nasty with this one woman that I kind of know, and she said the most awful thing after this exchange. She said she hopes my daughter gets molested. Oh, my God. And you think you can just say that to somebody? People

Chuck Shute: 23:36

never say this shit in real life.

Bob Forrest: 23:38

Never would you say that. Yeah. And I was just like, this shit, this is cesspool. So I got off and everyone's telling me, No, our SEO is gonna fall. And, you know, and people need to know about the rehab or whatever. And I said, Well, if it starts to fall, and if we're not getting the admits that we get based on my reputation, then I'll go back and do it. Well, it's five years later. Didn't impact our business in any way. All those social media marketers are liars, just trying to create jobs for themselves.

Chuck Shute: 24:08

You do? Could someone else run the social media and doesn't have

Bob Forrest: 24:12

to be you're phony, though the chili peppers kind of do that. Oh, I don't

Unknown: 24:18

want to say

Bob Forrest: 24:22

but I mean, we, you know how, why you have to have this presence? It's you're you're talking to people who already like you or agree, you know, know who you are or whatever. You're just trying to engage them. That's what you'll hear from social media, uh, marketers, engagement, how many engaged things, right? If you have a podcast, you can ask the listeners. I ask the listeners, hey, if you like this, like, tell your friends, like, you know, text message, the link or whatever. I don't need them to sign up, fucking nothing. Like, just like, if you like it, you know, so tell your friends about it, just like when i. Got the clash London calling, I went and told everyone, this is the greatest album ever made. So if you like this podcast, all everybody listening, go tell your friends about it, and go and then their friends tell their friends about it. That's how things really happen. I think that's how, certainly how Howard Stern happened, which is kind of the blueprint that later led to Rogan and and then podcasting is Howard Stern was what he was. And he got fired, and he still stuck to his guns, and he believed in what he was doing, and, and he just kept on it, and it just grew and grew and grew, and now it's just the gold standard. Of all, almost all, there's no such thing as Johnny Carson. There's this Howard Stern Joe Rogan, you know what I mean? And that's not some scam, that's not some social media marketing campaign that was a genuine like, Rogan, I don't get but, but Howard Stern, I get like, I'm not an exercise guy. I think there's exercise guy worlds like, and they're gonna give Roger another chance, though, because he has an exercise guy.

Chuck Shute: 26:06

But it's not, it's not. He doesn't talk about, I mean, he has people on that from like, musicians, comedians, scientists.

Bob Forrest: 26:13

I do listen. I listen. I like it. I just it's like, to me, Howard is is so he used to be so funny. He's a little bit more serious now. But Marin was a friend of mine before, you know, an acquaintance of mine before. And all of a sudden we're talking about Mark Marin. I was like, Mark man, the comedian. He's like, Yeah, we got the biggest podcast in the world. And I was like, wow, how is that you did this podcast? And I asked him before we did it, like, what's the secret here? And he goes, I don't know. I just stumbled into it. Like, I'm at my house. I'm gonna fucking be here because I live here, and you're gonna start talking the truth, you're gonna start telling the truth, you know. So, you know, he waits out, he so he has the original, you know, people like sting or Elvis Costello or Obama, he's there and he's going to keep the conversation going until you get real. I thought that was great insight because podcast, because in other media, you're done in 15 minutes, or you're done in 30 minutes. With podcasts, you can just stay there and you can get rid of the whole first two hours. Yeah, until Obama levels with you, or, or, or Elvis Costello. I said, Who is the hardest? And he said, Elvis Costello. He just sat there spitting out his like, you know, typical Elvis Costello stuff. And he wanted to know, you know, some things that I want to know. I love Elvis Costello. My son's named after him, not Elvis Presley. And you know, Elvis Costello, to me, is one of the greatest songwriters of all time, especially the first seven or eight albums. And yet he seems like he he feels disrespected, like there's no nobody more celebrated as a songwriter than him, you know what I mean. Yet he seems like frustrated, or that he doesn't get the respect that say someone like sting or, or, you know, I don't know, Phil Collins gets right and, you know, to get down in there, like, what is it? What is it like? What is it that you feel like you didn't get you know what I mean? I'd like to know that there's certain things about certain people, especially musicians, I'd like to know right? Lou Reed, who died before I was able to ask him, he celebrated drug addiction in a very blunt, digestible, understandable way heroin, the song heroin and Velvet Underground, you know, perfect day. There's so many songs he wrote that are obviously a celebration of drugs. Yet when he got sober, he hid it in hidden meanings. Like, I know that he wrote songs about being sober, but he disguised it, and he was kind of clever about it, one called new sensations, that is about being sober and how everything is new, but he doesn't say I stopped doing heroin, yeah, and he never talked about it. And the whole

Chuck Shute: 29:22

thing about me, I mean, you're a musician too, like, you know, like, aren't you supposed to kind of use metaphors and things like that and kind of be more clever? I mean, that was what Cobain, you know, because it was, like, the 80s, it was more black and white. And then Cobain came along, and it was like, Oh, wow. He's, like, talking in, like, totally different, poetic,

Bob Forrest: 29:36

yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and we knew so much about him, it was the beginning of of like MTV, and knowing about people in ways that we didn't before, it was more mysterious. Like Led Zeppelin was mysterious all my growing up, you didn't know anything about them, really, other than the mythology that they got out through their kind of. Uh, you know, artwork and collective interviews. You didn't really know about bands the way that you started to know about bands post MTV and interviews and the whole focus of things. So a lot of people knew so much about Kurt Cobain that you could read things into things that maybe weren't there. I remember when, after he died, there was a song called in the Pines by, I think it's by Lead Belly, but I think it's an old bluegrass song, uh, anyways, and in it, it's like, my girl, my girl. Don't lie to me. I don't know if you ever heard that song on unplugged, right? Yeah, of course, yeah. So knowing so much about him and Courtney and their life, and the kid and all that, you're thinking, Oh, he's doing that song, and it's meant to be about Courtney, right? It's not if you go back four years before he produces and plays guitar and sings background on the exact same song on Mark lanigan's solo record in the pines. So he probably in my you know, I know how musicians operate. He probably a lot of Nirvana songs don't translate acoustically. They're doing unplugged, you know. So he chooses to do a couple of meat puppet songs. He does the Vaseline song that he always did. And then why not doing the Pines at Lanigan thing? Because you can fill out the hour, right? You can't really do teen spirit Acoust

Chuck Shute: 31:29

choices that I that's one of my favorite unplugs, honestly. Yeah, it's really a huge Nirvana fan, but, I mean, it really was, if you look at it now, especially it stands the test of time. It's really a brilliant performance. I don't know if he was fucked up during it, but,

Bob Forrest: 31:43

I mean, it's takes so long I've been there, when some people recorded, it goes on all day. It's like, you're gonna be fucked up, you're gonna go to sleep, you're gonna wake up cranky, you're gonna

Chuck Shute: 31:54

do I know that Allison chains one, I think he was really fucked up, like they. Wasn't the Nirvana one, one of them, like, they he was like, so high, and then they had to get him, like, uppers because he was gonna, like, pass out. I can't remember if that was lane or Kurt, but yeah, it was

Bob Forrest: 32:09

always lane. Lane was, it's funny, as I was going down, that next wave of Stone Temple Pilots and and Allison chains was coming up, Pearl Jam, all that, and so I was going down, and I didn't, I don't know, I probably had a place to live, but I just hung out at my drug dealer's house all the time. And I was at my drug dealer's house, and I was sitting on this couch doing drugs, and these two guys came in, and then I was looking at them, and then MTV was on, and they were on MTV, and then I looked back at the couch, and then I looked at MTV, and I was like, and then they laugh. And I said to Frenchie the drug be like, who? Who are those guys? And he said, Oh, it's Alison chains. And I was like, it's a new breeding. You know what I mean? There's dig the new breed, like, there's guys, but where were they? At the same drug dealer's house that me and Robin were.

Chuck Shute: 33:11

Like, you said the drugs everyone, old generation, new generation, different genres. Like,

Bob Forrest: 33:17

yeah, right. See, I mean, I've done drugs with like, like George Clinton, Niles, Rogers, Bootsy Fleetwood, MacBook,

Unknown: 33:34

yeah, I

Bob Forrest: 33:38

have a book called running with monsters. I talk about, I was trapped in a broom closet with Niles Rogers and David Lee Roth and the two people from New Order for like, 45 minutes. We went in there to, like, have a bit of coke, and then the door jammed and we couldn't get out. And it was a nightclub, so it was really loud, and we're pounding on the door trying to get people to open it from the other side. Finally, I think just a janitor, or somebody bar bar back came and opened the door, and we were like, Oh, fucking let us out of here.

Chuck Shute: 34:10

That's crazy. So when you look back at the drugs, like, because there's obviously some good times, do

Bob Forrest: 34:15

you think drugs are bad? I don't think drugs are bad. Well, do you think I think I think I think that people are, here's the thing about drugs, they can enhance life, and at a certain point they start to take away from life, and by that time, addicts only, a particular genetic, predisposed population can't stop because everyone I know has done drugs like you know, but not everyone ended up like how I did, or like how 1000s of other people I know did. It's the use in the face of adverse consequences. Continual use in the face of adverse consequences. Consequences more I always tell the story. He doesn't like me to tell it now because he's such a successful person, but I had a friend who was a lawyer. He was in law school, and he used to always come over my house, like Friday, Saturday night, we'd go out and he'd always bring a gram of coke or whatever, and we'd snort coke and go drink, and he'd smoke weed, I don't smoke weed, and we go see bands in 8586 and then he's like, I'm not gonna be able to do this anymore. And I was like, why would that be? Like, I didn't know he wasn't married. Like, you know, because I was pretty sophisticated and why people stop like their wives tell them they're going to divorce them, or their bands tell them they're going to kick them out. I knew. And nothing was, nothing could be in this guy's life. And he goes, Yeah, I'm going to be taking the bar after this last go round and and if you're, if you're caught with possession of a controlled substance, you can't, you can't have a law license. And I was like, You're not going to get caught. Like, that's the drug addict. That's the drug addict. You're not getting it. What are you talking about? Go get a grandma coke and bring it over here. But it was and he did coca just as much as me, but when he had good reason to not do it anymore. He just stopped, right? That's not addicts. Addicts don't stop, right? And if you

Chuck Shute: 36:30

could do the drugs with no consequences and no bad effects, you would just you would do them because it was great. It was great when it

Bob Forrest: 36:37

was fun. It was great when it was fun. I don't think I'd do them now. I don't I've gotten to another place, but most people do drugs to kind of or drink to, you know, to be social or to whatever. So when you start doing drugs and you're 1617, you feel nerdy and insecure and awkward and whatever. It helps, right? And then I think there was another stage where it was just so fun, like we would do such fun things, right? Like, you know, when you got a gang that's all, like, doing the craziest stuff on Earth, it's pretty fun, right? And, like, we used to, like, load up syringes of coke and ride our bikes up to Hollywood lake and then shoot the coke up there, and then ride down really fast. This is, like, when we're like, 20, that's pretty fun. Okay, your ears are ringing and you're just driving in the darkness and you can't see and we're just all challenging each other. Go as fast as you can down this big hill, down into Hollywood and and going and seeing bands and, you know, going to Lollapalooza, the first Lollapalooza, we were all we had a we had a trailer that was just a drug trailer, because Perry, because Terry was in charge of it. We had, like, a trailer that was like other non addicts. Don't come in this trailer, you know, just the who's who, of what's what, we would just circulate, and just, they had couches and a table and, you know, and had a bathroom, and it was just fun for like, three days, I think a lot of palooza. The first one was three days at Irvine Meadows. If I correct, I don't think I left there one of the nights, but, but it was fun, and then it became not fun, and we became fractionalized, and you were using it now just to be well, or just not be sick, or you were using it to, you know, comfort yourself from not understanding Your existence on the planet. I think a lot of the misled rock stars, like lane, for instance, like he didn't, he was a strange bird. I know not well, but he just seemed like he, he didn't like being famous, right? Which a lot of Seattle people are like that. I think Eddie vetter's like that. I think, I think there's a lot of people that Michael Stipe was like that, that you know you're you've driven to do this thing, and then you succeed, and then you realize you don't want this kind of thing, you don't want people paying attention to you all the time, or you don't like being put upon. I think there's a whole and I think drugs kind of is a way of withdrawing from society. My friend Matt dyke, the greatest hip hop producer, did that. He just, he just couldn't handle what being famous was, right? He produced tone oak and the Beastie Boys and all this stuff, and he was one of my best friends, and he just withdrew into this big house he had, and he just sat in there doing drugs for 20 years, until he had a physical breakdown, and his sister called me, and I went and got him and got him into rehab, but, but certain people can't handle it, and then what do you do? If you like making records. I think Eddie Vedder probably did the greatest decision making. He. Realize he doesn't like what's happening to him, but he loves playing music, so find a model that's not dictated by corporate record companies and MTV and Rolling Stone magazine and and I think Pearl Jam did the best job of identifying we don't like what this is, this big rock world and rock stardom, but we do love playing music, and I think their their kind of plan was, we're not going to be on MTV, we're not going to do interviews, we're not going to make videos, and we're just going to make records and look at they're the ones that survived at all. That is interesting,

Chuck Shute: 40:42

because I remember they did the first album, and I think they probably did some interviews, but I know they made music videos because they had a

Bob Forrest: 40:48

live Yeah, Jeremy, yeah. Jeremy, yeah. I

Chuck Shute: 40:50

think wasn't Jeremy the last one. I don't think they did a video after that. Yeah. I

Bob Forrest: 40:55

think that Kurt's death had a profound effect on Eddie, and he thought, like, I'm next if I don't do something different, right? Which is, you know, Kurt felt trapped, it seemed like, and I, I remember telling like, you don't have to do this. You don't have to. Nobody's holding the gun to your head to make records and make videos stuff, right, right? And so I think that's what kind of saved Guns and Roses. They just like they made that, you know, the first they make the Covers Record, which is just goofy because they didn't know what to do. And then they go and make, you know, use your illusion, which, if you take Use Your Illusion and make one record, it's a masterpiece. But you don't even know which side is which side. You know what I mean, it's, it's kind of crazy.

Chuck Shute: 41:44

I love those records. But yeah, I think if they would have combined it in one it would have been so sought, and they could have taken the other side and made it a B side, or so, I don't, yeah,

Bob Forrest: 41:53

yeah. But then, and then comes the never ending Chinese Democracy, right? Such a weird thing. Save them, though, when you think about it, like maybe they wouldn't be alive if they would have kept going, right? You know what I mean. So there's all these conscious decisions, decisions made, but I think the hardest thing was for the hair bands, like, what do they do? Right? As Nirvana knocks them away, what do they do? Right? I think probably poison did the best job of managing through, right, really,

Chuck Shute: 42:27

because they kind of like ended, didn't they, yeah,

Bob Forrest: 42:30

but that. But then the singer becomes like some TV star and country guy, and they get back together and do the through the touring in summer. You know, it just is interesting how music, music comes into vogue, and it just seems unstoppable. And then, like, right now, everybody says, oh, hip hop, that's all kids listen to. Like, hip hop will go away. Something else will come. You know, when you look at the leaders of hip hop, unfortunately, a lot of God, Little Peep juice world, you know, even Tyler, The Creator. They're not really doing hip hop. They're doing some weird amalgamation of self pity folk music, I don't know, with a hip hop beat. Do you listen to the modern music that I think, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 43:22

I do, because I go to my gym, and my gym is all like the cool kids, so they play, like, the new rap

Bob Forrest: 43:29

extension, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 43:31

I'm sure that's the like, if you played the songs, I go, Oh yeah, they play this at my gym all the time. I don't really know, but

Bob Forrest: 43:36

it's interesting. It's not like, Fuck the police. They're not singing political NWA, yeah, me too. And singing that they're singing like, poor me, that girlfriend, she fucked me under I'm gonna kill myself. Like, you gotta really tune in to like, what's going on in hip hop. So eventually hip hop will evolve away and not even called Hip Hop anymore, if that's where it's going, if, if, what's going on in hip hop right now for 10 and 12 and 14 year olds that they're listening to, it's going to go in a different direction. Nothing. You know, I always say this. Everybody thinks like Google's unstoppable or Apple's unstoppable. Xerox was apple. Nobody remembers Xerox. Yahoo was Google. Nobody remembers Yahoo unless somebody has a yacht. You know what I mean, everything changes. Everything evolves. And so does music, and so do bands. Yeah, I

Chuck Shute: 44:35

know what do you think about rock, though, because see when I remember frozen,

Bob Forrest: 44:40

yeah, okay, um, like, I

Chuck Shute: 44:42

remember in the 90s, like, Nine Inch Nails coming out, and I was thinking, this is going to be the future. And then that, like, industrial, kind of, like rock music never really took off. What do you think is the future of rock? I mean, other than, I guess drum machines now are big, but I

Bob Forrest: 44:55

think songs need to come back. Like, the thing that was great about it's. At nine. It sounds you great songwriter, yeah, what I mean? And when you get those hits of the of the hair metal bands, they were great songs, like, they're really cool songs, right? Every raw, you know what I mean. And um, Motley Crue had that home tonight song or whatever. It's kind of weird, home at home, sweet homes, kind of Rupe off of an Aerosmith song home tonight. It's on, I think it's on, rocks. Oh yeah, I'll tell you a funny story about Steven Tyler. He and I are hanging out a lot, and he knows that I'm not the biggest fan of loving an elevator in that era Aerosmith, right? Because all I ever talked to him about is Get Your Wings and rocks. You know what I mean? And it's so funny, like he said, What's your favorite Aerosmith song? We're sitting around one day, and he had an acoustic guitar, and I said, seasons of wither. And he started playing it like and sang it right and right in my bedroom. I was just like, why the crazy? He sounded perfect, just like a record. So he knew I, like, Get Your Wings and dream on and rocks and some of you know, toys in the addict or whatever. So I keep telling him, like, Dude, you guys should make go on tour and just do only rocks. Just do rocks at like, you know, the forum, and do toys and attic like, do a residency and do the for his albums. And he's like, people, you don't know anything, people, people love those songs, meaning the popular ones, right? Sure. And so he calls me, like, three o'clock in the morning, and he goes, You're so wrong. And I said, What? And he goes, I'm down here in Brazil. And so I decided to do what you suggested, and I did a block of five songs off rocks and in the middle of the set, and people just sat down, and people went and got beer. You don't know what the fuck you're talking

Chuck Shute: 47:00

Well, yeah, Brazil is different than LA,

Bob Forrest: 47:03

no, but they have become that band that is mostly that 90s, late 80s, Aerosmith. Like, when you think about it, like there are two bands in one.

Chuck Shute: 47:11

Well, that's kind of like, right out. Chili Peppers evolved too.

Bob Forrest: 47:15

They don't do anything off their first five albums, nothing. They were like a

Chuck Shute: 47:19

punk band, yeah. How did that? Like, how I mean, because, I mean, like, when then I think in your movie, it's Anthony's talking about, he's like, yeah, we'd hang out, we would do drugs, and occasionally we write a song like, yeah, become such good musicians, where they always have that talent, or they just get better. Well, I

Bob Forrest: 47:36

think they were good musicians. Anthony is the hardest working lyricist I know, like, if I worked as hard as him, I, you know, I would still be playing music. He just really work part of the lyricist. He's just always thinking about words and lyrics and sentences. He's got books all around his house, and he'll say, I gotta, I got listen to this line. And he'll tell you a line of his, isn't it? You know, he he's written some of my favorite lines and rock songs. There's one about war that says, isn't it bitch and see in dead men and ditches, that's about as blatant as it comes about war. Like, I, you know, I'm big on songs that mean something, not just songs. And so he has all these great lyrics. Like, there's one about the disease of alcoholism, where it says, I've got a bad disease from my brain, is where I bleed. That's a fucking genius line. That's like, yeah, so I love that song. Yeah. He has amazing lyrics, and he and they really don't get the respect they deserve. To me, they're just most high you don't think you get enough respect. I think as a band, and kind of like in that Led Zeppelin big way they do, or guns and Rose way. But I think that respect is a songwriter. I don't think that he gets what he deserves. But, I mean, we all get what we get, and whatever, but, but he's a great lyricist, and he worked really hard at it, and I it kind of came natural to me. I would just think of something, and literally, a song would just come out in like, 2030, minutes. I wrote two of the songs on our third album, like in the studio, just like making it up with a notebook, and they're really kind of the chaos of what I was and how a tune I was. It really just made sense. And, you know, and he works at it much different way than me, like and other lyricists I know, I know Axel just, I've seen him over that Chinese Democracy, just with notebooks and, like, sitting there trying to figure shit out, and, and, you know, they made Chinese Democracy. It was at my friend's studio, and I go by there sometimes and like, Tony Stinson be there, and the brain would be there, and then, and then just be like, what's been going on? Like, oh, rerecording.

Chuck Shute: 49:55

Wow. Did you see Bucket Head? Was it? He

Bob Forrest: 49:57

said, Yeah, Bucket Head was there. Does

Chuck Shute: 49:58

he always have the bucket on? Even, oh, okay, so you know what he looks like?

Bob Forrest: 50:03

Yeah, everybody does. He's, he was friends with the fishbone guys. I don't know if you're familiar with Yeah. I remember them, yeah. And so there's just, you know, there's songwriting. Is what all this is about. You know, is songs and how to tell stories and how to convey feelings to the listener. And you know, nowadays, I don't know that people cherish it or respect it the way they should. You know what I mean? There's songs about nothing, so many songs about nothing, right? I listen to Morgan, Morgan Wallen. You ever listen to Morgan Wallen? He's got, like, every song is like him and his girlfriend got in a fight, and now they're but she used to blame too, and I got all the blame, but she used to blame. He's got like, nine songs like that. Like, what is that that connects with people like, blame the girl. Yeah, for your drunken stupid isn't

Chuck Shute: 50:59

a lot of music to me. I feel like a lot of it, for people, is just, is the song catchy? Can I sing along? Does it change my food? Right? And they're not looking at it like you are, where they're looking at the lyrics, which I think is I like both personally, like, sometimes I do look at a song, go, wow, that is a really cool line from and sometimes, like, it's doing this podcast, they'll listen to the songs more closely, so I can talk about the artists, about something. I'll read the lyrics and go, Wow, that's a I never would have, like, even paid attention to the lyrics if I wasn't paying it. You know, you have to look

Bob Forrest: 51:28

closer. Yeah, and, and to me, lyrics are everything, because I grew up in the 60s, and I had older sisters, and that's all they talked about with Bob Dylan and the Beatles. And, you know, it was like, All You Need Is Love. I remember when that was on TV, is like, That's a profound statement in the middle of post Eisenhower, America, all you need is love. Because to my mom and dad, love meant sex. To them like so their daughters are all excited about sex, and they're just missed the whole point. No, they're talking about love and caring about their their friends and their community. And you know, that was a big deal. Lyrics were a big deal. All You Need Is Love. And

Chuck Shute: 52:14

I agree, because I feel like and I didn't grow up in this time, obviously, but in the 60s, there was all these, like, anti war songs and things like that. And I just feel like that. There's turbulent times right now. There's wars going on. I feel like nobody's writing anything about it. Where's the powerful songs that make us rethink things? I mean, why is everything about I think, well, here's

Bob Forrest: 52:35

an interesting thing where you said, what is relevant rock music? What's going to be relevant? I think Pearl Jam's last record, record before last, had songs about Trump and Trumpism and division, but nobody the the cult. He doesn't have the ear of the of the pop culture, right? It's more for the Pearl Jam fans, right? So you're almost preaching to the choir. You know that that thing has to come from the people that have the ear of the culture. That means it has to come from Billie Eilish. It has to come from Halsey, and it's also a lot of girls are in charge of the pop culture. And then you know that idea that women, girls, women, that they have the ear of young people, right? Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift has the responsibility to the millions of dedicated followers she has. There's a responsibility my dad just say, too much is given, much is expected, and see the new generation. They want all the bells and whistles and prizes, but they want none of the responsibility. That's kind of how our politic is too. We want everybody to have a house and everybody have five grand or whatever, and like, yeah, how do we do that? A, B, is that good for everybody? See who's going to pay for it. What, I mean, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 54:02

as an addiction counselor, see, that's what I see a lot of in the world. And, I mean, I'm not, I was a counselor, and I, you know, I didn't, I studied addiction a little bit, but I this, this, uh, the thing enabling Can you because to me, that's what I see a lot of in the world right now, is like, I feel like we are as a society, enabling a lot of dysfunction. And that's just my opinion. And I mean, you can look to almost bring up almost any topic, and it's like, I feel like we're enabling people. We're not helping them be successful on their own. We're enabling them to be dysfunctional. And

Bob Forrest: 54:34

this is, this is true, absolutely true. We have 50,000 homeless people that we call it homeless, yeah, I don't know, like, or unhoused or whatever word makes people feel good, right? It's people we've given up on, really, isn't it? They're just and we don't get it. Yeah, we don't use words like pathetic, or, you know, like it's pathetic to watch people. Poop in the street. We gotta, we gotta help them. Like, help them, yeah, and I think just giving them

Chuck Shute: 55:06

a house, then they're doing drugs, and how a free house that doesn't like, you know, I feel like they need something. I mean, I don't know, I don't know the laws and things like, can you force treatment or, you know? I mean, that goes back to what I was saying. I don't know that the war on drugs is really helping, but I feel like just allowing these people to just, yeah, like you said, poop in the street, shoot heroin up in the street. I don't think we're helping them. I don't feel like that's doing them as well.

Bob Forrest: 55:31

We're also not helping I have three children, and they watch. It's like kind of why I moved away outside of LA I lived in Hollywood my whole life. I was born there. I live in beechwood Canyon, when my second child was born, like, my wife's like, we can't, like, we get to the intersection. You just look and live people like, everywhere are like, I don't know if you know Los Angeles, but Hollywood Boulevard, Gower Beachwood Canyon, all it's just like, it's like, it's just insane. They had a basketball so you go down beach where the Hollywood sign is right, and you make a right to go down Gower to where, you know, clubs and markets and whatever is in that underpass under the 101 freeway, the homeless encampment. They had tents, and they obviously, they had electricity, because they had TVs and lights and everything. They got a basketball hoop, and they would just play basketball in the middle of the street, and nobody would do anything. So you're trying to drive home, and these guys are, like, playing two and they're not, like, when I was a kid, yeah, we played football on the street. As soon as the car came, we got out of the street and let the car go by. No, they don't. They don't because of this entitled, weird thing that we're doing with everybody, where we don't say, Hey, get out of the road. Like, that's not cool. You can, I guess you can play basketball here. The cops aren't doing anything. But when people are driving their kids home from school, get out of the road, right? It's this lack of respect, I think, and this, you know, so but with it, with addicts, I think that you want to turn the heat up on addicts. That's what got me sober, losing my career didn't get me sober, losing a girlfriend, I'd be like, Oh, I get a U haul truck. What the hell you know? I mean, like, I was the things of why people get sober? Yeah, I, you know, my first, first and second wife to divorce me because of drugs. I was like, okay, like you my argument I remember was you married me knowing that I'm a heroin now you want to divorce me because I'm a heroin addict. You're the inconsistent one,

Chuck Shute: 57:42

that's true, right? The good point. Yeah, so

Bob Forrest: 57:45

the threat of financial devastation or divorce didn't stop me. The threat of losing my band or losing my, you know, my the thing I had such a passion for, didn't stop me. Losing custody My son didn't stop me. Nothing stopped me, but the way the LAPD would arrest me repeatedly and put me in jail, where you would kick heroin in jail with nothing that, that and the monotony of it, that was the thing. Like I got arrested I think, 19 times, and I probably kicked dope in jail like 10 times, eight times. It's a horrible thing you don't forget right now, at that point, I become willing to go to treatment. And I go to treatment over and over again, because I don't want to live this hell right that that is living on the streets, being a junkie, getting arrested all the time, and it really is what motivated me, and in the end, what got me clean that doesn't exist anymore, that monotony of being they don't arrest anybody anymore. They don't even arrest you. I mean, I don't know what the LAPD arrest people for, but they don't arrest people for assault, shoplifting, drug possession. You know, you know, screaming and yelling at people in the street, they just drive right around them. And this is the new compassion, justice or whatever. And so I just know that with fentanyl and the new permissiveness, I'd be dead, I would not be sober, I would not be talking to you. So I hope this leads to those people gaining insight and getting off drugs and getting off the streets. But I don't, I don't see how it can, right? I don't see how it can. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 59:36

I remember I went to this conference one time, and it was this guy, and he was a cop, and his son became addicted to opiates. And, I mean, there was all these like things where he would come in and he'd destroy their house and try to steal stuff and like, and he'd always, he'd end up at the hospital multiple times. They'd always go visit him in the hospital. Yeah. What the hell is that about? So, yeah. So at one point they there was a counselor that told him, said, Okay, next time he goes in the hospital. Don't go. So they didn't go visit him in the hospital. And that was when he got sober, because I think he realizes, like, oh shit. Like, I'm on my own. This is, like, really depressing. Like, nobody gives a fuck about me. And that's when he decided to get sober

Bob Forrest: 1:00:12

and turn and turn his eyes from focus on himself outward. So that's what I I've always thought that's a good metaphor. All I thought about for those years that I was such a selfish asshole, was me, and what people cutting me off did was have to focus out and like, say, oh my god, I'm alienating everybody. Every you know, everybody's flee has fled me. Nobody wants to have anything to do with me, including my musician friends, right? They'd seen me, and they'd like, you know, I'd be on the street and I'd see somebody driving by, and they'd be at a stoplight, and I'd be waving like, Yo yo yo, pull over, and they would like, not look over.

Chuck Shute: 1:00:54

Interesting. Do you feel like you were projecting the hatred of yourself onto other people during that time? No,

Bob Forrest: 1:01:00

I think they had all just had enough, and I had lied to everyone and disillusioned everyone and disappointed everyone and and for, you know, addicts can do a hell of a job of alienating people and hurting people and and, you know, using because we use People for it's a strange kind of narcissism that addicts have, right? I told Stephen Adler this, like I said, Steven, it's not that people don't like you, it's just they're sick of you. And he's like, really, people are sick of me. And I was like, I'm sick of you. I know.

Chuck Shute: 1:01:37

Is he doing better now? Okay,

Bob Forrest: 1:01:39

yeah, great. You should have mud. He's obsessed with the Four Noble Truths. Do you know what this is? No, oh, my God, just like with the flyers to come see his band. Now it's the Four Noble Truths. Okay, what is the book? It's like to always be truthful with your tongue and always be right sized. And it's all these rules. It's a book called The Four Noble Truths, or something. That was his thing, like mine was mine was like AA and Buddhism and Steven's thing is that it's the Four Noble Truths.

Chuck Shute: 1:02:16

Do you think that people that have this, like addiction gene, like they just do everything to the extreme, yes, yeah, okay, that's what, I'm sure, yeah, that's what it seems like, like people, because, like, again, like, Aerosmith, like, then they got clean and sober, they're like, Okay, we're gonna focus on music, and then, like, their career. I mean, I know you'd like, the older stuff, career took off. Like, you know, the success wise, like, yeah. But I

Bob Forrest: 1:02:39

mean that, you know they here's another thing about bands, if they stay together, they have ebbs and flows of greatness. Neil Young is that Bob Dylan is that the chili peppers are that, like most bands break up on a downward like, like Aerosmith would have broken up after Night in the Ruts and never gotten back together until now, with all the touring Live Nation money, they would have gotten back together, but they never broke up. Aerosmith never broke up. Chili Peppers never broke up. Pearl Jam never broke up. Guns and Roses never broke up. They've always been right. And the parents that broke up over whatever you never saw what they would have done. You know what? I mean, yeah, so

Chuck Shute: 1:03:23

with your band, because you, this is a thing in the movie where they talk about your band, you, you got the solo deal, and you're like, I don't need these fucking band members. They they ripped your like, your solo thing was terrible. And it reminded me because I had the drummer.

Bob Forrest: 1:03:36

It really was. It really was

Chuck Shute: 1:03:38

because, like, I had the drummer of Creedence Clearwater on. It was like when John Fogerty went off onto his own. Even though he was the singer, he was the principal songwriter, his solo career never took off as much as so what? What is the deal with that as someone in that solo thing so different if you're the singer and the songwriter? Why is it different if it's you, versus being

Bob Forrest: 1:04:01

because, because, because, when you're a solo artist, everybody does what you say, and nobody gives you feedback or whatever. It's just all and then the producer was a key role. So and I worked with some producers that were, I don't, I don't know what the I don't want to I like both of them, and they were cool guys and whatever, but I think they thought they had to commercialize me, right? And so they so it's always these safe drum sounds and like no controversy. And I remember I had a lyric that said, the chorus said, Jesus, don't forsake me, because I'm not bad. I'm just a little misled, right? And it was kind of a poppy, kind of up tempo song, and they they kept saying, you can't use the word Jesus in a song. And I was like, why not? Like, who's Who are you worried about forsaking you more than Jesus? You know what I mean. And they convinced me. To change the words like, Hey, you don't forsake me because I'm not bad. It's like, Hey, you from Jesus. Hey you. And it was, it ended up horrible. Now never came out. And just little compromises like that, lyrically and musically. And, you know, I'd like something that was a little edgy, and they'd say, no, no, no, let's like, redo it and soften it down. And, you know, just make it more commercial, more commercial. I think, I think that happened with I know it happened with Billy Gibbons. I know it happened with John Fogerty. I know it happened with Dave Perrin from solos on it's just and Paul Westerberg from the replacements. It's just like you get into this world that everybody's doing what you think, instead of arguing with the bass player, the drummer, whatever, the way that bands operate now it's this one person, and it's this machine that kind of tries to soften you and make you into something they think is more commercial. And it's just you against the machine where you know bands are more organic and they are what they are, and you get what you get. You know, I get fuck you kind of thing, right? And, um, when, when, when? My because the the songs aren't bad, they're just done badly, right? And they're compromised, and choruses are a little too pretty and too soft language and whatever. And it just is embarrassing. I remember, I lived with Keith Morris from black flag in the circle jerks, and I had this song called body and soul. It's about wanting to commit suicide, but it sounds so pretty and perfect. And, you know, like tales of brave Ulysses by cream, and I'm playing it in the living room of our house. And He came out of his bedroom to pee, and he stood in the hallway, and he looked at me, he goes, sounds like a Budweiser commercial. And then he went his bedroom, and as it was like, I played it again, you know this back in cassettes. And I was like, it kind of does sound like but you get sopped in a mindset about it, right, and and so, yeah, solo careers never work out like you just see it time and time and time and time and time again. And bands do. Bands survive, bands ebb and flow. Bands are up, bands are down. And I wished I never had quit my band. I really do.

Chuck Shute: 1:07:23

Yeah, well, you guys got back together, right? And then

Bob Forrest: 1:07:26

you missed a missed a thing there. It was never the same. I mean, touring was the same. We were good live, so we could probably still be playing now, but, oh god, I remember I went on a tour with my band I got when I got sober, called the bicycle thief. It was me and Josh clean hopper. He's now in Pearl Jam. He was in the chili peppers. And and three other guys, Chris Warren and and Andrew Clark from campfire girls here in LA. I remember being in the dressing room, and we just played New Year's Eve, 99 into 2000 and I was going to be 40 years old, and they were all 22 and our road manager said, What's next, Bobby? And I realized, like, we're just gonna do what we did this year again next year. Like, I can't do this. Like, ride around in a van and go play and ups and downs of it and try to build a career. I just said, you know, I can't, I can't really do this, like, you know, just emotionally, I couldn't do it. Physically, I couldn't do it. It's a lot to play for an hour and a half. It's a lot. And I was already going to school to become a counselor, and I like that, and I was already working at the musician Assistance Program, and I thought, I'm just gonna and so that band broke up, but I got a publishing settlement, and I remember I had enough dough. Here's the thing, two times in my life I've had enough dough to live, like 10 years and only lasted two I don't know what I don't know what that is, but I was just I didn't work, and I was staying home, and I wasn't going to play music anymore, and I was kind of counseling part time, and and, and I got depressed, and I thought, I gotta commit to this drug counseling. Can't just be half assed about it, because I've got money. I gotta go and work somewhere. And Harold Owens at music cares also told me, like, Bob, you're gonna talking to people other musicians about sobriety and drug addiction, but you don't really know what you're talking about. And that is true because I didn't work in a hospital, and I didn't know much about Psych and I didn't finish my education, so I went back and did that. You know, when you get licensed, you got to work for two years, for three and a fucking psych hospital, it's pretty intense, you

Chuck Shute: 1:09:39

know? Yeah, I know an internship in a psych hospital. Yeah,

Bob Forrest: 1:09:43

I know what I'm talking about. I don't think I could have done you were the singer in some band. You're just the guy doing the paperwork. Yeah, it's a

Chuck Shute: 1:09:52

wild ride, because people have psychotic breaks in while you're talking with them. Oh, I never had that, but I. Would be like, you know, over here in the and then they'd be like, Code Red. Code Red, yeah, go grab somebody. And it was, like, it was kind of scary.

Bob Forrest: 1:10:07

I used to take clients outside, because it's so loud in the locked unit, they would let me to do an assessment, or whatever. I'd take them outside in this little patio, the smoking patio, and a basketball hoop at it, and I'm talking to this big smoking kid. And, you know, I wasn't scared of people. I'm pretty amiable, like, you know, even if they were violent last night, they were medicated and whatever. So I was never scared. And he started talking some weird shit and, like Satan and whatever. I was like, Oh, I'm just here to figure out whether, maybe, after you get, you know, you transfer out of here, which is the locked unit. You come to our drug treatment unit. I you know, if you think some of this stuff is drug related, and he just said, you're trying to make me do he got, like, up, he stood up. And he's big, tall kid. And I was like, whoa, whoa. And he ran and he jumped and grabbed the the basketball, you know, rim and flung himself over a 20 foot fence with barbed wire on top of it, landed on the other side, and I was standing there, and I knew I was in trouble. Like,

Chuck Shute: 1:11:18

wow, I'm picturing like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, like,

Bob Forrest: 1:11:22

jumped over the fence. It was the craziest thing, just like in one place, nest and and, and he land on the other side, and he looked at me, and he was smiling. And I was like, holy shit. And so I was tapping on the glass into the people nurse station inside, like, pointing like, he just jumped over the fence. Wow. And catch him and bring him back. Yeah, that's good, jeez. So I worked there for nine years, and by the by the midway through that, I wasn't a musician anymore. I was a therapist and I was a clinician and and it felt good, like I reinvented myself. But what have you,

Chuck Shute: 1:12:00

what is your advice to people who have repeatedly gone to rehab and it doesn't like they just can't they have, like, the physical addiction of drugs or alcohol

Bob Forrest: 1:12:09

is there? I think he just learned something new. I went to a lot of rehabs, and a lot of my friends have, um, I think he learned, he learned something new. Like, a lot of the things that they told me in my first couple rehabs, I really believe to this day, but I just wasn't ready to stop, and I wasn't ready to get real or change how I operated or look at things differently. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn something.

Chuck Shute: 1:12:33

So it just takes several times of going,

Bob Forrest: 1:12:36

Yeah, you will to get through that. You know, usually we believe we are who we are, and we think who we what we think, because it's organically who we are. It's not it's based on our childhood trauma. It's based on how we see the world, and because of that trauma, and so everything that happens is kind of dictated by our trauma. I'll give you an example. So my therapist asked me, Is the world is safe this when I got really into therapy after I got sober and I really took it serious, he said, Bob is the same. Is the world is safe or non place that's safe for an unsafe place? And I said, Roland, it's an unsafe place, and anybody that tells you it's a safe place is a fucking liar. I was so adamant that the world is an unsafe place. This is 20 years later. I don't think the world is an unsafe place. I perceived it as unsafe because I was traumatized and sexually abused as a kid. I was lied to my whole life, I then created a world of drug addiction and and and being betrayed by people, because that was the world I was living in. I was embracing, and I was I was asking to be betrayed. And so I had this whole history of life up until my 30s, where I just saw the world is an unsafe place, and you can't trust anybody, and and people are fucked. And I no longer believe that

Chuck Shute: 1:14:08

was accurate from your childhood like that, yeah, and

Bob Forrest: 1:14:12

that's what you were saying about Axel Dave Navarro. The same thing Dave Navarro watched his mother be murdered by his stepfather, right? I don't know if you're aware of that.

Chuck Shute: 1:14:22

Oh, no, I didn't know that. But I, I was reading Bobby Brown's book, and she talks about Dave Navarro coming over and just some crazy shit, where he she put on this, like, weird porn and stuff, and she was, like, really freaked out by him, and like, that was like, it's but now that that explains a lot of it. Yeah,

Bob Forrest: 1:14:37

he has a documentary called Morning Sun, M, U, M, o, u, r, N, I N, G about his mother's murder, and then the guy who killed her, the stepfather, never got caught, and so Dave never knew, like he was the only witness to it. So his whole life, he was thinking, like, that guy is going to kill me, right? That'll make you a little untrustworthy of the one. World, right? Sure, a little anxious, a little depressed, and so when you do drugs, it'll comfort that anxiety that you have, right? And so fuel the creativity, though, yeah, I think, I think for sure, you have this wanton, wanton abandoned for music, right? Meaning, somebody's calling me, oh God, hold on. It just makes you that person that that that doesn't care, like is out for today, right?

Chuck Shute: 1:15:35

But they use music. It's like a cathartic thing. And I would think just to write a song. I mean, the drug too, but I think, you know, they they probably do both. And then when they get sober, they don't use the drugs, but they could still use the music as a cathartic process.

Bob Forrest: 1:15:51

I would think, right? I think, I think we're all like that. My, you know, my story is my sister's my mother, it's in the documentary, and I didn't know, and, and at the time, I didn't think it was that big a deal, but when you look at it to be lied to your whole life, I started to go over it when I was in my late teens, early like every day, interaction I had with every family member, because they all knew that my sister was my mother. They were all lying to me. They all kept up the front my aunts, my uncles, my sisters, my cousin, my own sister, mother, my parents, who were my grandparents, everybody was lying to me for my first 13 years of life, and and just wow, how can that not profoundly affect you? Yeah, well,

Chuck Shute: 1:16:39

I think, I mean, it didn't that the same thing happened to Ted Bundy. I feel like that was the same.

Bob Forrest: 1:16:44

I think it happened to Jack Nicholson. It happened to John Lennon, Eric Clapton, maybe too, was it? Maybe? Eric Clapton, I don't know, but, but the story goes, you know, it was typical that, you know, grandparents would, would adopt a child to kind of keep a lid on the guy up or whatever. That's what happened to my family. They didn't want to admit that their 14 year old daughter got pregnant, right? So they'll just put her away in a, you know, a convent. That's where she went at 14 years old, St Anne's home for unwed mothers. It was called and and then the gave birth to me, and then they brought me home like my parents had had another kid. And you know, I was pretty smart kid. When I was little, I remember my mom saying that she had a hysterectomy. And when you hear a word like hysterectomy in 1968 or whatever. And you're a curious kid, I went and looked it up what a hysterectomy was, and I saw sterilization, and I was like, and she was referring to it like she had had it a long time ago, like before I was born.

Chuck Shute: 1:17:57

Yeah, that's suspicious. Oh, hell,

Bob Forrest: 1:18:01

hysterectomy. In 1958 if I was born in 1961

Chuck Shute: 1:18:07

Yeah, good point.

Bob Forrest: 1:18:10

And so all those lies, you know, kind of makes you mistrust. And I think I mistrust people. Mistrusted people until I met Anthony and flea. For some reason you meet your people and like these guys. For some reason we just click. The three of us clicked,

Chuck Shute: 1:18:29

even though they fire you were like the road manager,

Bob Forrest: 1:18:32

yeah, the road manager. They fired me, but this before that. But

Chuck Shute: 1:18:37

it was just more than just drugs with them.

Bob Forrest: 1:18:40

Yeah, it was, it's beyond drugs. It was we weren't even really, we hadn't even done heroin. We were do coke. But it was something about them. They had an attitude of life that I wanted to have, like, seize the day, like, you know what I mean? And I had that, my bookwormy things, but I was always too scared to seize the day. And they were just like, didn't give a fuck about anything, like nothing, and just have fun and diamond dash restaurants and do whatever, and go to clubs and go anywhere. And it never stops, like, because I would go to sleep like at that time before I met them, like I go to sleep at a regular time, like 12 watch Johnny Carson go to sleep. They would just, like, time didn't matter to them. We just got to stay up two more hours and we can go eat like, you know what I mean? And then, and the way that they were so full of life, it's so eerily similar to Jack Kerouac's experiencing on the road like he meets Carl Marx, which is actually Allen Ginsberg and Neil Cassidy. Anthony and flea were like Karla Marx or Allen Ginsberg and Neil Cassidy. They were just, it was like I had read about these people in books when I was a kid, because I was a bookworm, and now they're in real life. Right here, and and it was fascinating and fun. And it's been 42 years or something. We've been, we've been running around together. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, so

Chuck Shute: 1:20:12

then, how do people fall off the wagon? Because then, I think didn't Stephen Tyler fall off because he got some was a prescription drugs and,

Bob Forrest: 1:20:20

yeah, operations and stuff. A lot of my friends have fallen off. My friend Hal died. He, um, he was, he was, like, 14 years sober. He was snow. What is the thing like, the the not snowboarding, but he was on a snowmobile in Alaska, and he ran into a tree and just smashed his whole face up and had all these operations, and he just got addicted to painkillers, then back to heroin, then fentanyl and and there was no stopping him. And I, I tried for eight years like and he passed away a couple years ago. It's just Yeah, it's a treacherous thing living in America and and all this prescription drugs. It's just, you know, I don't, I don't get anything. I don't do anything. I think you go to doctors that's they'll make you sick, they'll label you with something.

Chuck Shute: 1:21:14

That's how they make their money, right? Yeah, they're not healthcare. So then, what do you think about psychedelics? Because there is some research that psychedelics can help addiction. Do you

Bob Forrest: 1:21:23

think there's any for sure? But I mean, it goes back to alcoholism. Bill Wilson took LSD, the founder of AA, trying to find some relief from anxiety and depression. I've found relief from anxiety and depression so but people who can't find it could find relief in hiawatka, or, or, or, you know, ketamine or, or hallucinogens, mushrooms. I don't I, I come from a society where I mind my business, and you mind your business right now, the Society of everybody minding everybody else's business and not their own right. And so I don't care what anybody does. And I, you know, people say, Do you think people could take ketamine? They're sober? I was like, I don't really think about I don't give a fuck. I know I'm sober. I don't care. I don't care. Like, you know, if somebody takes prescription drugs and they say they're sober, what? Who am I to say they're not? I don't care. But you this movie The the

Chuck Shute: 1:22:21

Suboxone. I actually worked in a methadone clinic, but you said, Suboxone is it? You'd rather have them get on heroin that's easier to kick. Well,

Bob Forrest: 1:22:29

that when people come to me when they're on Suboxone, because the initial brigade of Suboxone prescribing it was crazy there, the people were on like, 36 milligrams, 24 milligrams. It's just like, you don't need that much, right? You don't, and nowadays they don't prescribe that much. It's like, I know doctors like 12 will hold you all day. You know, it's not going to really do anything but compound your physical addiction to Suboxone, right? Saturation. So people would try to kick, and they'd make it to day seven, and they'd still be deathly ill. And I would say, You know what? And they would, you know, the doctors and the medical professionals say, Well, why don't we put you on just give you eight milligrams today to get them back on Suboxone. I would say, after the doctor lab, like, I would go get some heroin. Right now, it's funny. No, it's true because, because going back on Suboxone just means you're going to be eternally on Suboxone, right? But heroin, you could probably use heroin to get off Suboxone. I think, you know, it's like, they call it switching deck chairs on the Titanic, but I don't like slogans and sarcasm, like, if that's the pathway, like, you know, I know a friend of mine just got off suboxone with alcohol. He just started drinking a fifth of vodka a day for about a month. And he was free of Suboxone now he had alcohol, which, you know, drink that much alcohol you're pretty much, you know, physically ill, and he went to a detox and went just was put under for like, a week, and came out sober, but he never could have gotten off Suboxone, not the way they do it. But I like methadone. I like accountability, right? So what methadone does is you got to go every morning before nine o'clock, or they lock the doors. I've been on methadone so many times, and it's 852 and you forgot and you got to go to the bathroom, and you're driving there, it's like, oh my god, oh my God, and the door is shut, and they're just like, No, fuck, you see you tomorrow.

Chuck Shute: 1:24:34

Oh yeah, no, because I had to go like, so early, because a lot of construction workers have to go before, like, 5am

Bob Forrest: 1:24:40

so yeah,

Chuck Shute: 1:24:43

and then really good, they would give you, like, a week supply, like, you had to, like, earn that privilege, or, yeah, oh,

Bob Forrest: 1:24:49

take homes on the weekend. Yeah, there was, I went. I was on Richmond, Virginia one time, and I'd see this lady, like, it's all junkies. I got me and that, yeah. Construction workers and near to wells and whatever, and there's always impeccably dressed lady with her briefcase and whatever, and she'd be standing in line like when the clinic would open, and I see her throughout a couple weeks, and I happened to be standing next to her one day, and we were talking about, I don't know what, and she's, I said, Do you mind if I ask you a question? And she's like, No, go ahead, honey. And I was like, Do you see anything weird in this line? Because she looked like the mayor of Richmond, Virginia. I'm like, how do you explain you in this line? Like, how? What's your story? And she goes, Oh, honey, I've been on methadone since 1964 you can tell old methadone addicts, they call it methadone and and she'd been on it since 64 this is in 1994 she's been on it for 30 years. And she got on it New York City, and she continued her education, and she was now the head of the English department at Virginia University. Wow. And but she had to go, just like everybody else, and get her methadone. And I said, You're the lady on the brochure. And she said, I'm the lady in the brochure. Mean, they always show people with briefcases and hats going to productive work. You know what I mean. And no one who's on methadone. Is that prime at one lady, interesting, right? That's

Chuck Shute: 1:26:30

crazy. So what is the what is this new thing that you're promoting? The reason

Bob Forrest: 1:26:35

for addiction? Well, they they never had a test. They always tell you, addiction is genetically based. But they didn't have a test. So I told some friends of mine like that, have this lab like, you know, there's no affordable or public access to a genetic test. I don't think, I don't think people would want to test themselves initially, when we were talking about I think, like, I would want to know which one of my kids is has a predisposition to addiction, right? Because I would parent them differently. Now I parent them across the board, I might be punishing some non advocate of mine, just treating them like they're going to be a drug addict unless they listen to me. Right? So I thought, what a valuable tool to parents, if I knew of my three children which ones had a predisposition to addiction that I would parent them differently, and then and have discussions about, I think talking is really important. My kids know a lot about drugs.

Chuck Shute: 1:27:35

Would you tell them that, hey, you have a predisposition. So

Bob Forrest: 1:27:38

yeah for sure. Yeah for sure, and what we've talked about it because these scientists, these doctors, these kind of brainiacs at DNA for addiction, figured it out how to get it affordable. It's not a completely foolproof, absolute test, but it certainly is where the consistent genetic patterns are right and and so like, how exciting, and it's a tool for parents to use with their kids. Like, listen, and I plan to do it amongst my kids. Of a couple of them, I'm pretty sure one is not an addict. I'm pretty sure the other two are are but and I'm interested to know when you have three children and you're recovering addict, like am I right? So we're going to test my children pretty soon here. But the idea that you could say now look at, you know, other people have the luxury of smoking weed or taking valium or doing whatever you teenagers do, but you don't. You can if you want, but you need to know that you have this genetic predisposition that's one ingredient of the four ingredients to become a hopeless drug addict. The second one is childhood trauma. If you're my child, you're probably traumatized because I'm no I just see all the helicopter parents and whatever. Like, my wife's kind of a helicopter parent, but like, I just, like, don't rescue make them ask for help. I have a thing in my book where I talk about I was with Elvis, my older son, in Paris, and I'd go to this park near the place where we were staying, and my kid fell like I was fell from a high part of the monkey bars or whatever, and I was running before he even hit the ground, and I was comforting him and picking him up and just being a good American Dad, and I turned and all the nannies and moms that were sitting on the benches where I was looked at me in contempt with This weird like, kind of fucking person is that? And we were there for two to 10 days, or whatever, and another kid got hurt, and I watched the mother, the French woman, with their hurt kid on the playground, make eye contact with them and wait for them to ask for help. Very. Important because it teaches a child autonomy. We don't teach that in America. We got 40 year olds living at home. I got, I got, I got friends that their moms still do their laundry. It's just fucking pathetic, right? What you were talking about earlier, with enabling? Yeah, the enabling. And so I watched, and the kid was crying, but comported himself and signaled that he was okay to her. Really important for a fucking seven year old to learn that you're in charge of you, you're okay, you can determine whether you're okay or not. And I didn't allow my son to have that experience. I was, you know, assuming he's hurt and he's crying and he needs me before he asked for help. And so I try to do that with my kids. And my wife's a little more the opposite. She likes to nurture and hug and all this kind of stuff. And we were at Disneyland yesterday and and my son was crying. He's like cantanker. He's four years old, whatever, and he's upset or whatever. And I was like, don't rescue him. Like, you know, he was tired, not keeping up with us. And I was like, my wife kept going back and picking up this big, huge kid, like, walking with him, and she's tiny. I'm like, put him down. I just, you're gonna walk. So I'm sure they're traumatized. I'm sure my kids are